1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer data entry and, more particularly, to a method for using a computer-readable form to enter into a computer the fulfillment status of individual requirements for completing an objective.
2. Description of Related Art
Many organizations set forth objectives achievable by completing a set of requirements. The objective may be an award that a member of the organization wishes to earn. Youth organizations in particular offer their members a wide variety of awards and other objectives to obtain recognition. For example, the Boy Scouts of America organization allows a youth member, such as a Boy Scout, to earn merit badges and similar awards by completing predefined requirements for the respective award.
Objectives can have many requirements. Some awards in the Boy Scout program, for example, have 10 or more separate requirements that a Scout must complete to earn the award. And some requirements may be fulfilled by completing a specified number of alternative steps. For example, completion of a requirement may require the participant to complete 4 of 7 specified steps, thereby increasing the potential complexity in tracking requirement fulfillment status.
In the Boy Scout context, a Scout typically works with a counselor, or a designee under the counselor's direction, to assist the Scout in fulfilling the requirements. Records of a Scout's progress toward fulfillment of the various requirements for the award are normally maintained on paper. For example, a merit badge card is a standard form on which a counselor may record by hand all requirements for the merit badge award and indicate those fulfilled by the Scout as he progresses. Upon completion of the requirements, the counselor signs the card indicating that the Scout has completed the award and returns the card to the Scout, who gives the card to an adult leader in charge of awards so that the award may later be presented to the Scout.
This manual system for recording the fulfillment of each requirement can become burdensome for the counselor or a designee when working with a large group of Scouts. For example, Scouts typically can attend a summer camp or other event and earn merit badges or similar awards. These awards may be taught in classes in which numerous Scouts participate over one or more days, and a Scout frequently is able to fulfill all requirements for, and thereby complete, the award during this time.
The counselors in many such settings maintain paper records of each participant's fulfillment of the applicable requirements. On the first day of class, the counselor may create a class roster form on paper by asking each Scout for his name and handwriting the name on the form, usually in the order received. The requirements for an objective or award are usually numbered, and the counselor often handwrites the numbers corresponding to the award requirement atop columns of check-mark boxes or similar constructs displayed on the roster form. Counselors may also receive another form from each Scout, such as a merit badge card signed by an adult leader, signifying approval to enroll in the class. The counselor collects these cards on the first day of class, handwrites progress information on them and returns them to the Scout at the end of the class, camp, or event. The card can thereby serve as a record for the Scout, confirming his completion, or partial completion, of the award.
During or after each class session, the counselor may place an “X” or other handwritten mark in the designated check-mark box or similar construct on the roster form signifying that a Scout has completed the respective requirement. In some instances, a counselor must also maintain a separate, nearly identical set of roster forms or similar records by hand so that scout leaders may review these records over the course of the class and thereby monitor the progress of Scouts under their supervision toward completing the award. Despite best efforts, discrepancies between the counselor's class records and the copy thereof can arise, since both are maintained by hand. If the discrepancy is not timely corrected, the Scout may rely on an inaccurate statement of his progress and possibly have to fulfill an incorrectly marked requirement after the class has ended, which can be discouraging and time-consuming. Even if discrepancies are discovered, resolving them and the resulting questions from scout leaders can be time-consuming for the staff members.
At the end of the camp or event, a virtual avalanche of paperwork can descend upon the staff. Thousands of awards may have been fully completed, and hundreds more only partially completed. The roster form from each class is finalized by hand, marked to indicate whether each Scout has completed, or has not completed, the award, and usually retained for the permanent records of the camp or event. To provide the Scout with a record of partial or full completion, the counselors often must manually fill out a separate card or other record for each of the many awards sought, manually indicating on each card each separate requirement that the Scout fulfilled. The cards are then manually sorted for distribution to the respective Scout's unit. These many manual processes are time-consuming and can become an undesirable aspect of serving on a camp or event staff. Moreover, with so many individual cards to manage, cards can be mis-sorted or otherwise become lost, necessitating time-consuming review of other paper records to re-construct the completion status of the awards corresponding to the missing cards.
To partially relieve a camp or event staff from this paperwork burden, a computerized solution could be employed. Under this approach, each Scout could register for a class by manually entering class participant data, such as event designation, name and class selection, into a computer before the initial class and storing the resulting selections on a computer medium, such as a diskette. The camp or event staff could obtain this data, for example from the diskette, and generate class roster forms ready for use on the initial day of class. Requirement fulfillment data could be entered into the computer by hand from the class roster forms, and the computer could generate reports concerning awards.
This computerized approach to managing award completion status may somewhat lessen the paperwork burden on the staff at a large camp or event, but it can introduce new problems. Camp or event participants may collectively work on thousands of awards. Hand entry of such a large amount of completion data could require the camp or event to provide computers for use by the staff. Furnishing an outdoor camp or event with a sufficient number of networked computers to avoid bottlenecks during data entry could be costly and present logistical issues. In addition, data entry errors can occur when manually transferring the data from the handwritten class roster to the computer and thereby degrade the reliability of the computerized information. Furthermore, a guiding principle of many outdoor camps and events is to provide participants and staff alike with an outdoor experience. Requiring the staff to spend time outside of class at a computer keyboard manually entering award completion data could unacceptably conflict with this principle and also reduce the time the staff might better spend assisting camp or event participants. Moreover, due to staff members' busy schedules, this time-consuming, manual task could become a low priority and thus performed infrequently. As a result, formal updates to scout leaders and camp staff managers alike concerning the status of award completions could become so infrequent as to prompt numerous ad hoc inquiries for interim updates, requiring the staff to spend time responding thereto.
Accordingly, there is a need for a low-cost, time-saving and accurate solution for entering into a computer the fulfillment status of the requirements for an objective, such as an award, particularly for awards and other objectives being completed during an outdoor activity. There is also a need for a data entry solution that does not conspicuously display computer technology to the participants seeking the objective, but nevertheless allows automated collection of completion data in electronic form for importing into a computer database. In addition, a need exists for initially collecting this data on media resistant to data loss caused by inclement weather during an outdoor camp or event.